The state education department says North Carolina public schools have laid off hundreds of teachers and other workers again this year in a pattern repeated for the past several recession-wracked years.

The state Department of Public Instruction said Wednesday that school districts laid off more than 530 teachers jobs statewide ahead of the school year that started last week. They were among 2,400 education workers axed.

The agency says its survey of all but two of the state's 115 school districts found that over the past four years they laid off nearly 6,100 people and eliminated 16,678 positions, many of which were vacant.

The education agency was forced to retract its earlier count of how many lost their jobs were lost due to faulty math.

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